UAA Athletics

UAA volleyball team picks up 5th straight win to remain undefeated in conference play

The Seawolves are the only undefeated volleyball team in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, a distinction they’ll put on the line Thursday when they host nationally ranked Central Washington.

UAA won its fifth straight match by rallying past Simon Fraser in four sets Saturday in Burnaby, British Columbia. Eve Stephens of Palmer racked up 17 kills and 10 digs to lead the Seawolves to an 18-25, 25-22, 25-23, 25-12 win.

UAA moved to 12-5 overall and 5-0 in the GNAC; Simon Fraser dropped to 8-4, 2-3.

“That was a great win on the road against a very good team,” UAA coach Chris Green said after the match. “We executed a game plan well.”

Simon Fraser won the first set and led for most of the second set, but UAA scored five of the final six points, including the last three, to tie the match.

In the third set, UAA used a 6-1 run to take a 24-20 lead only to surrender the next three points. With his team clinging to a 24-23 lead, Green called a timeout, and when the Seawolves returned to the court Ellen Floyd took the pass off Simon Fraser’s serve and fed Stephens for a set-point kill.

Floyd finished with 44 assists and four aces.

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Lisa Jaunet and Mahala Kaapuni furnished 14 and 13 kills, respectively, with Jaunet hitting .500 and Kaapuni hitting .346. As a team, UAA had 54 kills to Simon Fraser’s 45 and outhit the Canadians .308 to .177.

Senior middle blocker Vera Pluharova had a solid night with four blocks and seven kills on 10 attack attempts for a .700 hitting percentage. One of her blocks was a solo effort.

The match was the only one of the week for the Seawolves, whose match against Western Washington, scheduled for Thursday in Bellingham, was postponed because of COVID-19 protocols. No makeup date has been announced.

The Seawolves return home for three straight GNAC matches at the Alaska Airlines Center, beginning with Thursday’s match against 25th-ranked Central Washington (8-3, 4-1). They play Northwest Nazarene on Saturday, Oct. 9, and face rival UAF on Saturday, Oct. 16.

This story has been updated with corrected statistics for Ellen Floyd.

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